Steve Evans plays down Mansfield Town’s tag as League Two favourites

John Lomas

Steve Evans continued to play down his Mansfield Town squad’s position as bookies’ favourites to win League Two.

“Favourites are only what bookmakers ‘guesstimate’. But you never know where squads are completely until the end of the window, which is the end of August,” he warned.

“I have a lot of respect for Kevin Nolan over at Notts County and I see their chairman has come out and said they are going to sign some big names and some superstars. That is great and it’s great for the league.

“I look at the work that Mark Robins has done at Coventry – you can’t fail to be impressed.

“I can keep going. There’s Paul Tisdale down at Exeter. He’s kept the ones he wanted to keep and he’s going to add to it.

“I know Chesterfield are a local rival but I get on exceptionally well with the manager. I have done my pro licence with Gary and I know what he stands for.

“Russell Slade over at Grimsby has gone back there to make an impact.” He added: “That’s only some of the local teams I have identified, never mind looking at the likes of Swindon, Carlisle and the other teams that are going to make it really tough.”

But Evans still has that pre-season feeling of excitement that has seen him pull off nine promotions in the past.

“It’s the same feeling I had at Rotherham – lots of expectation,” he said. “That season at Rotherham we didn’t start particularly well and we had to win the last six games in a row to get promotion.

“There were lots of ups and downs and there were a lot of games we totally dominated but perhaps didn’t always get the result we deserved.”